'Composition or Cr*p?'

This photo, different for me, was taken on the first shutter release and is

intended to be a 'composition'; but you tell me. Is it a composition of

just 'cr**'? You be the judge. Your ratings and critiques are invited and

most welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically or just want to be

heard, please submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share

your photographic knowledge to help improve my photography.

Thanks! Enjoy! John

1. balance

2. vectors

3. angles

4. framing

5. capturing 'the precise moment' and

6 'mirroring'

 

Any comments about any of the above in relation to this photo?

 

Or is it just crap instead of a composition?

 

;~))

 

John (Crosley)

Composition! Not that it was your toughest to take, but it's fun!

I took this without really analysing it - just trying to get an interesting shot of an airplane flying framed by city signs.

 

Consider the direction and shape of the plane versus the direction and shape of the In-N-Out Burger sign (and other things which I will leave for others to comment on.)

 

I did not so thoroughly analyze beforehand why this photo might 'work' but for me, it really does, and each time I look at it, it grows on me, as a good photo should, and I see increasing complexity within the 'composition' - but maybe again, it's just crap and I fell for a piece of (****)?

 

My view is it 'works' far, far better than ever imagined, but Your View May Vary - and wildly.

 

;!))

 

I'm glad you found it fun.

 

I think in my early days I never could have 'seen' such a composition and would thus never have tried; nowadays I try almost everything, and often am rewarded.

 

Thanks for sharing your view.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

I like your newly posted self-portrait!

Yes, Victoria's Secret, where they have a wonderful stairway right out of Tara, the 'Gone With the Wind' staircase, lined with beautiful women's photos on one side and a giant mirror on the other.

 

That's me, with the lens and the corpulence.

 

Those are not my photos, alas.

 

But don't cry for me; my girlfriend's a model, of about the same age, and I didn't chase her.

 

I see her in two or three days after a hiatus -- it's long-term and entirely 'her choice', as I never chase women at all.

 

After all, men make themselves available, and women do the final choosing - anything else is a recipe for disaster.

 

I was picked, much to my delight, as 'she' is super smart, super-loyal, has wonderful judgment, and just about the soundest reasoning of any person I have met in my life, and the most compatible of all the women in my life ever (no cross words and just peas in a pod, but nothing bland, either - looking back and forward - the love of my (long) life.

 

No excuses have to be made OR compromises on my part (maybe on hers(?), but it was HER choice, and she seems VERY happy).

 

No named photos in my portfolio, though, and I don't even carry a personal photo of her - no one would believe me anyway so why invite disbelief?

 

My ex-wife invited a visit (she has survived her brain cancer) just two nights ago -- see her photo in my single photo (color) folder - she's now 37 I think and stunningly gorgeous, though much older than the object of my affection.

 

(I turned down my ex-wife, who has remarried, as who wants to upset any apple carts for her, with a husband, a pair of new kiddies and by all accounts her husband is a super nice guy?) When I met her she was just a hair shy of the beautiful looks of say, an Angelina Jolie, 11 years ago, and they are about the same age and still comparably matched for looks. (my ex-wife's head and shoulders superior in the IQ department, I am sure.)

 

Life's pretty unbelievable sometimes.

 

How can you possibly believe me; I wouldn't if I read this and had met me casually. I would think I needed institutionalization, except I know it's the truth -- as the truth can be highly improbable.

 

Sometimes life can be so horrible I have to pinch myself to even believe the bad stuff is not happening to some wretch on the street (at one time, due to the fault of a giant corp.'s intentional acts - my considered view -- that was where I was for a while).

 

At other times, my life's almost out of of Shangri-La, and almost entirely unbelievably good, if not wealthy.

 

Photography is my wealth.

 

Give me a camera -- any decent camera - and I am on my way to happiness.

 

That variability and how good it is for me when it is good is why I almost never speak of it to others (especially strangers), and basically this is the first I've written of such things, though now it's public record.

 

And at any time it can go from one extreme to another without anything that I do. If I am 'on top of the world' one minute, I am always aware I can be in the gutter the next, through no personal fault or consequence of any action I have taken.

 

That's the nature of my unusual life - much more so than many others.

 

And in part it's because of my trusting nature and in part because of my lust for the potentially 'great' photo that I continue to chase.

 

That's also one reason my photos can show many sides of life -- and show respect for all, from bums to the very rich.

 

I shake all their hands with equal dignity, which is why, say Whitey, the street bum with no teeth depicted in my 'Faces' portfolio or 'Mike of Huntington Beach',could speak with me at length and let me photograph them often from within inches of their faces . . . . and at the same time, I can go to the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills and know that no one there is my superior (in part because they cannot shake Whitey's hand and almost all visitors there would be revulsed at the thought) of chatting with his toothless, twisted face on a bus bench or side walk.

 

Or of meeting up (before he was arrested) with a former worker's compensation worker,a retiree, who I believe was just arrested as a 'mass murderer'/rapist, whom I met and had a rather bizarre conversation with in South Central Los Angeles across from Jesse Owens Park on Western Ave. (no need to call police, they got the DNA, which turned out to be a surprise match, but this guy gave me the willies though and I never heard of the his crimes, and he did not give any inkling of anything other than a bizarre, twisted (super clever and arrogant) mind.

 

Ugh!

 

No pride in having had that conversation, but wonder that I came that close to such a person before he was a suspect (if I am right, and if not, than I am just wrong).

 

My life, my conversations, and impromptu street acquaintances are so varied it's almost beyond description (I've met for sure two mass murderers in my life -- one a kitchen worker where I went to school who offered one night to slice MY throat, a few months before he was arrested for doing the same thing to the little old ladies he raped in elevators in NYC's Washington Heights Section, on his was to Attica for life. (ref. New York Daily News and other sources as well as personal knowledge.)

 

I go from the 'good life' personally also to the horrid and back.

 

One day my beautiful last wife and I were famously in love, and the next she was diagnosed with brain cancer AND blamed me for causing it, and then left me within days as payback for my 'causing' her brain cancer (which we both were told would be fatal soon).

 

That causation is something she still believes I think, but privately, even while still liking me, even loving me, now, I think.

 

Life's been a 'bowl of cherries'

 

I've been a Forrest Gump sort of character, there in all sorts of modern life's history being made, just with a little more brains.

 

Next it may be Ukraine for the Presidential elections this winter!!!!!).

 

A proxy battle between Ukrainians who support the West and those who support Russia and Putin (and I take no sides except that of good, hopefully 'great' photography.

 

Who knows, I may get kicked in the teeth again by life, even soon.

 

Or arise again Phoenix like.

 

Life's like that.

 

For me.

 

One constant:

 

A good photo is a good photo - and a world class photo is that for all time - a treasure I seek every day, at almost all hours when I go out, always armed with one or two cameras (except when that giant corp., caused me temporarily to abandon photography entirely . .. .and living paralyzed hand to mouth, literally).

 

(Then when they finally paid to trust the sum they owed, they paid with a giant check that under banking rules could not be turned into cash for almost an entire month all part of a scheme I think to trample me down a little . . . . another case of corporate 'gotcha', while I begged for money to live, and lived still in total poverty, which I am sure they knew . . . . and relished.)

 

Corporations have no heart and no soul, which is why one cannot take a photo of a corporation.

 

They sometimes dress their employees up as good citizens who volunteer for 'this' or 'that' good cause, but the corporations themselves exist for one reason alone - PROFIT with capital letters.

 

 

And for some, anything in the way of that, sometimes gets shoved aside, including the law, good morals and ethics.

 

Even if the person harmed is me, possibly even my life, and with least regard of all the continuation of my photography which to a corporation has no worth at all.

 

I guess we haven't heard the last of that one, but probably have here in this forum.

 

Glad you like my 'bio' photo, taken just as the abject poverty lifted.

 

And now off to see my best friend in the world for a while, so watch for some new and very different postings after a while.

 

(I'm backed up for months if I want, in postings here - 20 to 30 downloads with some wonderful stuff that I haven't even looked at but briefly let alone photoshopped, and am now armed with new respect for Gary Winogrand who died with those hundreds of thousands of unreviewed photos.)

 

I hope to avoid that fate, however and hope to end my days as did Cartier-Bresson, a man who became avuncular, looking back saying 'it was worth it', all in all.

 

Best to you Luca.

 

Soon, from my own improbable Shangri-La.

 

Far away from here (and where you are also, as I do have a visit tentatively scheduled there.)

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

P.S. I always love it when you drop by, even infrequently.

 

jc

This is a interestingly composed image. It gives the impression of what a urban area near a airport looks like when a plane is coming in to land at the airport and passes all these buildings and signs. A dramatic shot. As for the moment it is well captured as the plane is placed very well in the frame, upper left corner, from there the eye moves and scans the whole image moving to the sign on the right, thus giving the viewer the intended impression. Nicely done and interesting work. regards

Thank you for the compliment on this photo.

 

I just took 'a photo of an incoming airplane' framed between signs, as I had hoped to do, but the more and more I looked at this, the more it has grown on me as a 'composition'.

 

If one looks at it from an artist's perspective, it has several things going for it, hinted above.

 

I don't feel like writing an analysis of this photo at this time, and you made a good stab at it - and there's a lot more, which is why it has held my interest.

 

A whole lot more.

 

In my mind it's a success,and successful images often have 'secrets' or special clues to why they are successful - here it's in the composition.

 

I can write the 'why' I think it is successful, but then raters (many at least) may think it's 'crap' so maybe it is useless to try to 'educate' them - maybe it's a lost cause and this photo's 'magic' is for me (and possibly for you too?)

 

I am happy with this photo and the way it turned out. I can think of no other positioning of the aircraft that would make this photo succeed as this position has (and the size of the aircraft and altitude, too).

 

Sometimes things just happen and the photographer (me) pushes the shutter release at precisely the correct time.

 

I think this is one of them, but it's for naught of others either don't 'get' this photo or just don't care.

 

Ah, well, I'll wait and see. Sometimes late raters' opinions 'turn things around'.

 

Dara, thanks so much for dropping by and sharing your views.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

Angles: The Airplane, in landing, like all landing airplanes has its 'nose up' and at a certain angle.

 

The 'In-N-Out Burger' Sign has a downward angle -- essentially the same angle, but a negative of the angle of the airplane.

 

So, if the airplane were pointing up + 15 degrees, the sign might be pointing down - 15 degrees (hypothetical, for illustrative purposes only)

 

John (Crosley)

The airplane has an aerodynamic shape, with a 'nose' at the front and an elongated body (just like all airplanes of course)

 

The 'In-N-Out Burger' sign top pointer also has a 'streamlined and elongated shape', and a pointer at the right side, corollary to the airplane's nose.

 

John (Crosley)

The aircraft, left, has its tail a certain distance from the edge of the left frame and it approaches a vertical straight line (the utility pole). (We do not see forward movement, but of course we 'know' or 'intuit' that it is moving forward . . . . as that is fundamental and shared 'common knowledge'.

 

The 'In-N-Out Burger' sign has a similar distance between its point and the right frame, and similarly, to the right of the arrow's point is a straight vertical line - the portion of the palm tree's trunk captured.

 

John (Crosley)

This photo, therefore, if one examines it closely enough, is a study in 'mirroring' by my analysis.

 

The airplane represents the left half of a 'mirror' and the 'In-N-Out Burger' sign represents the right half of the 'mirror'.

 

This is not an identical mirror like my 'Saint-Germain-des-Pres' photo taken on the Paris Metro showing two nearly identical itinerants sleeping end to end on a single bench, looking as though they each were a reflection of the other.

 

This is somewhat more complex.

 

Here the shape, idea and form of the airplane is carried through in the right half of the photo by the 'In-N-Out Burger' sign's form.

 

This photo is composed (yes, composed) as though the right half is meant to be a 'reflection' of the left half, or better yet, as though the left half were 'folded over at the center (the vertical utility pole) and a similar and corollary (but far from identical) imprint were made on the opposite side of the paper.

 

So, in that view, the upward pointing airplane becomes the downward pointing sign.

 

The center, vertical utility pole becomes the right partially seen (and slim at that) trunk of the palm tree.

 

The horizon carries through from left to right, requiring no mirroring, and it is the upper portions of the photo that 'come into play' in this somewhat complex reflection.

 

All this was apparent to me (or nearly all) when I posted this, but it did not seem fun just to make my own 'explanation' of my own photo and to see if any (or how many) would make a stab at it. Sometimes a substantial number of members can and have taught me a large variety of new things about photos I have taken, which is why I post on the Critique Forum.

 

I have received some of the best critiques I think any photographer on this service has received.

 

But however,'view-worthy' this shot, and in spite of its having attracted a few critiques (and some good ones) this photo, I felt needed more explanation on this forum, which is why this and the three above comments.

 

Are my views accurate?

 

Agree or disagree?

 

John (Crosley)

One can make the initial comparison of the center, black utility pole as a straight vertical line nearly bisecting the photo, as providing almost a center point at which to make a 'fold'.

 

Interestingly the vertical line it represents is 'broken' by the braced overhanging street light to the left.

 

More interesting to me, is its corollary on the right - the dark vertical line of the palm tree at the right frame is topped also by a left (only) mass, which is the (cropped in frame) top of the palm tree.

 

Of course the two figures are not exact 'mirrors' and that might be less interesting - they are corollary figures.

 

Looking further, there are corollary figures throughout, with signs on poles, and particularly the countervailing TAO sign which is on a pole, but in this case the vertical pole is at the left and the overhang to the right (the Goodyear sign, being more to the center, is supported by two poles.)

 

Obviously when taking and framing this photo, it is impossible to verbalize all this, but when I look, look again and then again and again at a photo, which is one method that I use to even Photoshop my captures and finally choose them to post, that level of complexity (absent other factors that may be important) is important to me in deciding whether the photo warrants inclusion in my most 'important" (to me) portfolio (Black and White; Then to Now or however it gets renamed from time to time).

 

My wonderful critics have helped me to 'spot' these sorts of things AND to verbalize them - obviously my 'eye' is better able to 'spot' them than to connect with my verbal abilities on the spot to articulate every 'interesting' part of a photo - as I shoot quite naively, just 'taking it all in' and 'concentrating on getting all the interesting stuff' within the four corners of the frame.

 

I suggest the majority of raters who gave this photo a more minimal rating did not fully 'understand' this photo as I have detailed just above' - though I may be wrong.

 

John (Crosley)

" I think in my early days I never could have 'seen' such a composition and would thus never have tried; nowadays I try almost everything, and often am rewarded. "

 

John I believe you have summed up my entire photographic philosophy in one sentence.

 

I am not going to describe your own composition to you since your own comments make it abundantly clear that you do indeed know what you have captured here. I like the photo it works for me also.

 

I found the fact that you put this composition together on the fly ( bad pun intended ) very interesting. I sometimes suspect that our snap judgments with the camera, when we are pressed to act fast, are more telling of our progress as photographers than our studied and measured compositions.

If there's one photographer on this service I would have liked to have a dialogue with today, it's you.

 

Precisely.

 

As I have already known (yes, absolutely recognized and known) exactly what you have just written above.

 

I could see it in your critiques of my photos, in your photos, and it's abundantly clear in your portfolio.

 

You try everything and are hugely successful at it.

 

There are three or four photographers on this service whose originality and/or mastery of their subject is so wonderful, distinctive and original, that I believe their work belongs in museums and/or galleries.

 

I just wrote a comment to that effect under Ruud Albers's portfolio, was about to write the same under yours, and would say the same about Giuseppe Pasquali, (who already has been exhibited and is being published as I write and who knows well my feelings.)

 

I have been 'schooled' by a mentor I have written about about the (what I believe is 'hidden') worth of my work, and he pounded home a small part of his huge body of knowledge into my pea brain (or pin-head).

 

It has worked to some small degree.

 

There are some phenomenal artists here, and some of the more serious ones are at the top of the most-viewed list, but YOU my friend, Ruud Albers, Giuseppe Pasquali are those I believe are headed (if you guys choose) for posterity or at least for high-end galleries and museums.

 

My mentor had me study, and although he thought me 'lazy', I was not, and drank in every word he said to me, thought about them, and have studied everything he said.

 

That only bolsters my opinion and even allows me to have a more educated opinion - now having been not only to galleries, but as part of my 'homework' having studied gallery offerings of ALL the world's galleries for photo and art that are offered on the Internet according to a well-known list which is available.

 

It's very interesting to me, which is why my one-time mentor told me to do that homework - so I would know 'my' place within the photographic AND art world.

 

Yours, Gordon, is not just photography, but ART with capitals.

 

Which I am sure will not surprise you one bit.

 

And such work comes not just from the heart but from the brain and the heart conjoined (I suppose a play on Henri Cartier-Bresson's famous saying).

 

But of course he was right.

 

The more I photograph also, the more I understand that when visitors came to see him, they'd pick up a personal photo of his family,etc., which he only thought a 'snapshot' and pronounced it a masterpiece.

 

He truly didn't know how to take otherwise.

 

I won't try to do anything but, however I almost always fail.

 

I suspect this amount of attention and your being 'on my mind' this very moment as you wrote your comment may surprise you a little, as we have had no interaction other than on this forum, but I have long recognized you and I (and a very few others) have very much in common, and of all of them, Ruud A. , you and I, and G. Pasquali seem to be the most 'inventive' (me, probably the least).

 

I'm so glad you stopped by, so I could let you know this economically and personally.

 

The day would not have passed anyway without my telling this to you, one way or the other.

 

Thanks so much for paying attention to my work and for stopping by from time to time on your way to photographic stardom.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

If one examined this photo, consider this:

 

There are numerous inverted 'L' shapes here.

 

Consider the 'TAO' sign, left, an inverted 'L'

 

The In-N-Out Burger sign, also an inverted 'L'.

 

The palm tree (the part shown) is presented as an inverted 'L'.

 

The light pole center, is also an inverted 'L'.

 

Further, the extension of the short end of the light pole (its light) can be visually extended to the airplane, so the pole can be seen as being 'unbalanced' and holding up the airplane

 

That makes it a similar but greatly exaggerated 'L' just as the 'TAO' sign pole holds that sign up in an inverted 'L" and the In-N-Out Burger sign also is an inverted 'L'.

 

So, three 'normal' or usual 'inverted 'L" shapes, a fourth 'normal' one that also could be extended (visually) to be seen as 'holding up in a greatly unbalanced manner) the airplane.

 

I guess that is considered repetition, and not just 'mirroring'.

 

It's amazing what one can find in some photos.

 

You just gotta keep pushing the shutter release.

 

And trying for the GREAT shot.

 

Some time lightning might strike.

 

It did once, with 'Balloon Man', early in my career -- my highest-rated and some say my best ever. (It's on the front cover of my just-published book, for private distribution only within the art world.)

 

Maybe it'll happen again.

 

John (Crosley)

A great composition as it has everything the world has come to in one lovely picture. Where's the stripper? You might want to photoshop one of those in to truley reprersent all the cr** along with the consumerism

Actually, the composition here is on several levels mostly noted above.  The plane and the arrow-like sign -- one descending at an angle, the other ascending (even though on descent) at a complementary angle.

The poles shown here are almost all supported at one end, with the other end unsupported (exception, Goodyear sign).

It's Urban Clutter, but with a familiar face -- In-N-Out Burger puts lots of smiles on lots of people's faces.  It's reputedly one of the best burger's made in a fast food restaurant in America, and frankly I concur, so '40s, or so, sign or maybe '50s, sign notwithstanding and all this urban clutter is emblematic of a certain time in our nation's history, captured in one photo.

It's 'The Jet Age' in one capture, not completely junkified, or if it's junk it's kitch, maybe.

In any case, I captured (or posted) it partly for the symmetry as well as the social (artistic) comment on a time mostly past, and maybe which should not be too gentrified.

Maybe it should but you know what happens when they start tearing down old things; someone suddenly discovers they were historical.

The 'Nude Dancers' place down the street, however, is being torn down, surrounded by a cyclone fence -- it long was the entrance to Los Angeles International Airport and a sign of urban decay at once.

A most unhappy duopoly now has bitten the dust -- background of so many cheesy motion picture seeking to inject 'realism' into their celluloid, now making way for a new, expanded LAX.

Thanks for making me think and reflect.

john

John (Crosley)